David Galouye: Dark Universe

He strung an arrow and wedged a second under his belt where it would be within convenient reach. Behind him, he heard Owen dig the spear shaft into the ground. Then he asked, “Ready?”

“Let it fly,” Owen urged. And there was no quaver in his voice. The last click had sounded. The lines were drawn.

Aiming at the hissing breath, he released the bowstring.

The arrow screamed through the air and thudded into something solid — too solid to be animal flesh. Screeching its rage, the soubat hurtled toward them. Jared strung the second arrow, taking his lead in advance of the winged fury.

He let it fly and ducked.

The beast shrieked in agony as it zipped by overhead. Then there was a thud and a final rush of air from the great lungs.

“For Light’s sake!” came the familiar exclamation. “Get this stinking thing off me!”

Grinning, Jared tapped his bow on the solid rock underfoot and, in return, picked up the sonic effects of a disheveled heap — soubat, human, broken lance, and protruding arrow shaft.

Owen squirmed out finally. “Well, we got the damned thing. Now can we go home?”

“As soon as I finish.” Jared was already cutting out the tusks.

Soubats and Zivvers. One by one, the Lower and Upper Level people could hope to eliminate the former. But what would prevail against the latter? What could prevail against creatures who used no clickstones but who, nevertheless, knew everything about their surroundings? It was an uncanny ability nobody could explain, except to say they were possessed of Cobalt or Strontium.

Oh, well, Jared mused, prophecy held that man would vanquish all his foes. He supposed that included the Zivvers also, although to him it had always seemed that Zivvers were human too — after a fashion.

He finished prying out the first tusk and some remote recess of his mind dredged up memories of childhood teachings:

What is Light?

Light is a Spirit .

Where is Light?

If it weren’t for the evil in man, Light would be everywhere .

Can we feel or hear Light?

No, but in the hereafter we shall all see Him .

Rubbish! Anyway, no one could explain the word see. What did you do to the Almighty when you seed Him?

He secured the tusks in his pouch and stood up, listening all around. There was something here that there might be less of than in the other worlds — something man called “Darkness” and defined as sin and evil. But what was it?

“Jared, come here!”

He used clickstones to establish Owen’s location. The echoes brought an impression of his friend standing by a thick pole that was leaning over at such an angle as to be almost lying on the ground. He was feeling an object dangling from the upthrust end — something round and brittle that hurled back distinct, ringing tones.

“It’s a Bulb! ” Owen exclaimed. “Just like the Guardian’s relic of Light Almighty!”

Jared’s memory resurrected more of the beliefs:

So compassionate was the Almighty (it was the Guardian of the Way’s voice that came back now) that when He banished man from Paradise, He sent parts of Himself to be with us for a while. And He dwelled in many little vessels like this Holy Bulb .

There was a noise somewhere among the living quarters.

“Light!” Owen swore. “Do you smell that? ”

Indeed Jared did smell it. It was so offensively alien that it made the hair bristle on his neck. He rattled his clickstones desperately, backing off all the while.

The echoes brought an incredible, jumbled pattern of sound — impressions of something human, but not human; unbelievably evil because it was different, yet arresting because it seemed to have a pair of arms and legs and a head and stood more or less upright. It was advancing, trying to take them by surprise.

Jared reached into his quiver. But there were no more arrows. Then, terrified, he cast his bow away and turned to flee.

“Oh, Light!” Owen moaned, scrambling back toward the exit. “What in Radiation is it?”

But Jared couldn’t answer. He had all he could do trying to find the way out while keeping his ears on the unholy menace. It was reeking more terribly than a thousand soubats.

“It’s Strontium himself!” Owen decided. “The legends are true! The Twin Devils are here!” He turned and bolted for the exit, his own bewildered shouts providing the guiding echoes.

Jared only stood there, paralyzed by a sensation altogether beyond comprehension. His auditory impression of the monstrous form was clear: it seemed the thing’s entire body was made up of fluttering sheets of flesh. But there was something else — a vague yet vivid bridge of noiseless echoes that spanned the distance from the creature and boiled down into the depths of his conscious.

Sounds, odors, tastes, the pressure of the rocks and material things around him — all seemed to pour into his being, bringing pain. He clamped his hands over his face and raced after Owen.

A zip-hiss cleaved the air above his head and a moment later Owen’s voice rose in a cry of anguished terror. Then Jared heard his friend collapse, falling at the entrance to the Original World.

He reached the spot where Owen lay, slung the unconscious form over his shoulder and plunged on.

Zip-hiss .

Something grazed his arm, leaving droplets of moisture clinging to the flesh. In the next instant he was tripping, failing, picking himself up and racing on under the burden of Owen’s dead weight. And he was seized by a sudden grogginess he couldn’t explain.

Deaf now, he staggered against the piled boulders that formed the passage’s left wall and groped his way around one of the huge rocks. Then he stumbled into a crevice between two outcroppings and fell with Owen on top of him, lapsing into unconsciousness.

“Good Light! Let’s get out of here!”

Owen’s whisper jarred him awake and Jared struggled erect. Then, remembering the Original World and its terror, he lurched back.

“It’s gone now,” the other assured.

“You certain?”

“Yes. I heard it listening all around out here. Then it left. What in Radiation was it — Cobalt? Strontium?”

Jared crawled from among the boulders and reached for a pair of cickstones. But then he thought better of making any noise.

Owen shuddered. “That smell! The sound of its shape!”

“And that other sensation!” Jared swore. “It was like something — psychic!”

He snapped his fingers softly, evaluating the reflected sounds, and continued around a great hanging stone that cascaded in graceful folds, flowing into a mound which strained up from the floor like a rearing giant.

“What other sensation?” Owen asked.

“Like all Radiation breaking loose in your head. Something that wasn’t sound or smell or touch.”

“I didn’t hear anything like that.”

“It wasn’t hearing — I don’t think.”

“What made us pass out?”

“I don’t know.”

They went around a bend in the passage. Now that they had put some distance behind them, Jared began using his clickstones. “Light!” he exclaimed, relieved. “But I’d welcome even a soubat now!”

“Not without weapons you wouldn’t.”

And, as they crossed the Barrier and continued on alongside the wide river, Jared wondered why his friend hadn’t experienced the same uncanny sensation he had. As far as he was concerned, that phase of the incident was even more frightening than the monster itself.

Then his lips grew grimly taut as an alarming possibility suggested itself: Suppose his Original World experience had been a punishment from the Great Almighty for his blasphemous belief that Light was something less than God?